https://www.facebook.com/groups/dachshundivddsupportaustralia/
http://www.dodgerslist.com/index.htm
These two sites have been an invaluable source of information and support, and with out them I really don't think we would have managed.
Even if I had protected her from jumping, running, going up stairs it may or may not have happened. Basically I have come to understand IVDD as a sort of time bomb... it could happen, or not. By protecting her I may have reduced the severity (or not) delayed the incident (or not) prevented her need for surgery (or not). The disks calcify and get hard, they may or may not rupture. Keeping her fit, and her weight down was a no brainer- and in retrospect her quality of life and love in being active was part of her nature and I could have never taken even a moment of that away from her. Now of course, we are putting in ramps to furniture and out the doggie door... any little bit we can do to reduce stress on those discs! And we have Gidget to worry about now too....
On Easter Sunday (it would be a public holiday) we noticed in the morning that Penny tried to jump up on the bed and missed. We didn't really give this a second thought, as she did not appear to be in any pain, and just carried on running around with Gidget. This was about 12pm-ish. We carried on with our day, Penny went over to visit the neighbours and play with their grandkids as she did on the weekend, and we were doing some gardening. She came back from the neighbours, and her and Gidget settled down in the sun to watch us work. I picked her up once and she did make a little yelp of pain, at which point I set her down and carefully checked her for tender spots. I did not find anything, and she did not yelp, cringe, cry or show any other signs of distress. As I picked her up with my gardening gloves, I though I must have squeezed her too hard... Again, I was not too concerned as she really did seem fine. She ate her dinner as usual- wolfing it down. Still no sign of anything being amiss.
At about 7:30 or so Kane said to me to check out Penny as she was walking crooked. We both immediately thought she had eaten/drunk something (as once before she had accidentally drunk some alcohol and had the same legless gait- we rushed her to the vet of course- but that is a different story.... FYI all alcohol is toxic to dogs in case you didn't know) as it was a public holiday and after hours, we decided to keep any eye on her. An hour later she was down. We tucked her into bed and kept her warm, she didn't seem too distressed or in pain at that time.
We took her to the vet 1st thing in the morning (still public holiday) as her condition had worsened over night. She was in obvious pain and distress. Our Vet immediately knew it was some sort of a back issue, and wanted to take some xrays and do a full neurological exam as well as give her some IV pain medication, so we left Penny there and came home a bit stunned. It happened to be my husbands birthday that day.... some birthday. I was doing internet research, and had made my own conclusions that it was probably IVDD- I just kept reading all these stories of people who had rehabilitated their dogs over 1 to 2 years, and the tears just would not stop.
About an hour later the vet rang and said it was worse than he had thought, and said we better come back up to the clinic. We drove there in silence- both of us expecting the worst. He told us he thought it was a ruptured disc, and that it was impacting on her spine causing pain, and ultimately nerve damage. He drew us little diagrams and everything. He then went onto say he had called a friend of his, who was a surgeon (turned out to be Dr. David Lidbetter) and told him of Pennys condition. If it was a disc as they expected, then an X-ray was not going to be conclusive, she needed a scan, which he could not do at the clinic. Then he went onto say that he had booked us the 1st appointment in the morning with Dr. David, Tuesday at 10:30, and depending on what we decided, that she could go into surgery same day. Our vet told us the cost would be around $4500, a quote Dr.David had given him on the phone. Then he said if we didn't want to wait, we could take her to the Sydney Vet Hospital where they most likely would not have a surgeon on duty being a public holiday, and if they called one in to do surgery on Penny that day it was going to cost a lot lot more, upwards to $8G. We decided to go see Dr. David in the morning, and so our vet then started Penny on pain management that would not conflict with the possibility of her going into surgery the next day.
I just want to say here, that our vets quick analysis of Pennys condition and his contacting Dr. David, getting advise, getting us a quote and booking us in, was a seriously good call on his part. It saved us a lot of un-necessary testing and waiting days for appointments etc, as well as making sure Penny was not given any drugs that would delay surgery. As I have learned, every hour the spine is impacted more damage to the nerves occurs. We just had super bad luck with it being a public holiday. He will have our eternal thanks for his good judgement, we were so lucky.
We took Penny home to try to settle her and get her some rest. Crazily, my mum met us at the vets, to see how we were doing. It meant so much to me, as she is not a pet lover. Animal lover yes, but not a pet lover, she really actually hates dogs and cats. Anyway I just mention it because it was really amazing she came up there to support us.
At about 5, the vet rang us to ask us how Penny was doing, and I was so glad he did, because she was still in obvious pain and distress- it was awful to see... She was doing what they call "stargazing" looking up, and sometimes arching her back nearly in a U shape with her front legs stiff out front and un-bending. She would arch back, then sort of sigh, or exhale and then do it again. I had given her all the tablets I could, and she was not settling down at all, there was no relief for her. So we brought her back up to the vets and he suggested he put her on IV meds and see if that helped. So we left her there with him. One of the hardest things to do, to leave her there in pain and confused, with her eyes glazed over. He rang us about 8pm and said she was finally resting, and was on a heated pad as well, and for us to come and collect her 1st thing in the morning.
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